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Freemasonry Debunked

"The greatest lure of Freemasonry is the mystique of a locked door—that’s why non-Masons are so fascinated by the organization"

Our culture is fascinated by Freemasonry. In everyday life, those of us
who aren’t Freemasons (or Masons, for short) wonder what goes on in the
fraternity’s closed meetings. We’re both curious about and suspicious of
Freemasons’ rituals and symbols. Are they part of a secret religion? A
cult? Thanks to certain books and movies in popular culture, we may even
find ourselves wondering if Freemasons are carrying on the shocking
legacy of the medieval Knights Templar or guarding a vast, hidden
treasure.

Well, according to the popular For Dummies® series, Freemasons do
keep some secrets, but none of them are as scandalous or
conspiracy-laden as the rest of us might suspect.

“The greatest lure of Freemasonry is the mystique of a locked
door—that’s why non-Masons are so fascinated by the organization,” says
Christopher Hodapp, author of Freemasons
For Dummies®, 2nd Edition (Wiley, January 2013, ISBN:
978-1-1184-1208-4, $19.99). “Everyone knows that the organization is
characterized by rituals, symbols, and ceremonies known only to its
members and Masters, and unwritten secrets that have been passed from
mouth to ear for centuries.”

Hodapp, who is an active Freemason himself, sorts fact from fiction in
his new book while revealing the truth about the organization he is a
part of. Freemasonry, he explains, is a society of gentlemen concerned
with moral and spiritual values and is one of the world’s oldest and
most popular fraternal organizations.

Read on for a (small!) sampling of famous figures who were (or are!)
also Freemasons:

Politicians and Founding Fathers

George Washington. America’s most famous Freemason, Washington
was initiated in 1752, in Fredericksburg, Virginia. After the
Revolutionary War, there was a strong movement to unite the nation’s
Freemasons under a national Grand Lodge of the United States, and
Washington was offered the position of national Grand Master, which he
refused. He was elected as Worshipful Master of Alexandria Lodge #22 in
1788. When the new Capitol City that would eventually bear his name was
designed under his watchful eye, Freemasons laid the cornerstone of the
new Capitol building in 1793, over which Washington presided in full
Masonic regalia.

In addition to Washington, thirteen other U.S. presidents are definitely
known to have been Freemasons: James Munroe, Andrew Jackson, James Polk,
James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, James Garfield, William McKinley,
Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft, Warren Harding, Franklin Roosevelt,
Harry Truman, and Gerald Ford.

Benjamin Franklin: Inventor, publisher, author, and statesman,
Franklin was also Grand Master of Pennsylvania, and member of the Lodge
of Nine Sisters in Paris.

Explorers and Adventurers

Following are some Freemasons who blazed new trails:

Davey Crockett: American frontiersman from Tennessee

Sam Houston: The man who avenged the slaughter at the Alamo and
defeated Santa Anna at the battle of San Jacinto, becoming the first
president of the Republic of Texas

John Glenn, Gordon Cooper, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Wally Shirra, and
Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin: American astronauts, among them the first
American to orbit the earth and the second man to walk on the Moon

Pioneers of Science and Medicine

Many Freemasons have played an important role on the scientific and
medical frontiers. Among them is Alexander Fleming, a Scottish
bacteriologist who won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of penicillin,
opening the golden door of antibiotic therapy for infectious diseases.

Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, great English war hero and
brilliant tactical soldier, known as the “Iron Duke,” the man who
defeated Napoleon at Waterloo was a Freemason. Eventually he became
Prime Minister of England. Although it has often been speculated that
his perennial enemy, Napoleon Bonaparte, may have been a Mason as well,
there is no documented proof of it.

Significant Businessmen

Henry Ford, a titan of American industry, was a Freemason. He
was the founder of Ford Motor Company, inventing the concept of the
assembly line in order to feed America’s insatiable appetite for hid
Model T Ford. Not always a poster boy for good Masonic conduct, he was
a virulent and poisonous anti-Semite, as well as a union buster, who
would use any and all tactics to control his workers. However, many of
the best ideas of the founders of American industry, including the
five-day work week, profit sharing, the shortened average workday, and
wages twice the minimum wage were Henry Ford’s ideas first.

Steve Wozniak, cofounder of Apple

Players in the World of Statecraft

Sir Winston Churchill: Great Britain’s greatest Prime Minister

J. Edgar Hoover: Founder of the FBI

U.S. Civil Rights Leaders

Booker T. Washington: Educator and reformer; prime mover behind
the Tuskegee Institute, the first normal and technical school for
African Americans

W. E. B. DuBois: American sociologist; one of the founders of
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
and the editor of its magazine, Crisis

Thurgood Marshall: The first black member of the U.S. Supreme
Court, who successfully argued against the doctrine of separate but
equal Brown v. Board of Education, the decision that integrated
American schools

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Famed classical composer and virtuoso
pianist; gave an underlying Masonic theme to one of his operas, The
Magic Flute

Oscar Wilde: Nineteenth-century Irish playwright and poet;
author of The Importance of being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian
Gray

Mark Twain: Author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s
Court, and many other books, all riddled with biting social commentary
disguised as fiction